A look back at this year’s dramatic Rally Bohemia
The 46th Rally Bohemia 2019 is a thing of the past. It was marked by the premiere of new attractive tracks and above all the duels of the two crews of the ŠKODA Motorsport factory team, which made it the most dramatic Rally Bohemia in the last years. Let’s take a look at this year’s “bohemka” in a broader perspective of the interesting statistics it has brought.
- The ŠKODA Motorsport team celebrated their tenth consecutive victory at the Rally Bohemia. They have been a continual winner since 2009 (until 2014 with Škoda Fabia S2000, then with Škoda Fabia R5 / R5 evo).
- The crews of the ŠKODA Motorsport factory team Kalle Rovanperä / Jonne Halttunen and Jan Kopecký / Pavel Dresler had a gap of less than 1.8 seconds on fifteen (!) of the twenty stages. Three times the spacing was identical – 1.7 seconds (on Stages 7, 14 and 16).
- The victory in favor of Kalle Rovanpery ahead of Jan Kopecký was decided by the penultimate Stage 19 Radostín 2. The ŠKODA Motorsport team thus got the winning double.
- Seven Škoda cars finished in the top ten absolute standings this year. Škoda make also occupied the complete podium.
- Number of Stages won: K. Rovanperä – 11; J. Kopecky – 6, F. Mares – 2, J. Cerny – 1.
- Škoda Fabia R5 model won all special stages.
- The competition was most influenced by the unstable weather with intensive rain showers throughout the competition.
- This year’s Rally Bohemia was dramatized by the second passage of Stage 11 Milíře, where most of the crews from the top ten suffered a puncture of the tire against the concrete edge of the bridge uncovered by gradual “cutting” of the curve.
- With the number of 20 stages, Rally Bohemia became the competition with the highest number of special stages in the whole series of the Czech Rally Championship.
- Among these 20 stages, 8 stages were completely new, 4 stages were included in the schedule after several years and only 8 stages took place on the sections known from previous years, even though they were mostly modified.
- All pilots praised the quality and difficulty of the new tracks in the Liberec region. They did not need to use any standard retarder.
- A total of 147 crews were successfully accepted for Rally Bohemia 2019 (Czech Championship 69, Czech Republic-HA 25, Legends 20, ECO Energy – FIA ENEC + Czech Trophy Cup – 33)
- The competition was completed by 103 crews (Czech Championship 41, Czech Republic-HA 12, Legends 18, ECO Energy 32) This is a percentage, as in the previous year, of 70% of the finishing crews compared to the crews taken over.
- The first section of Sunday’s leg this time required significant losses at the top of the field, when three crews from the top 15 of the standings crashed and the fourth damaged their wheel.
- Most crews, nine, (eight in the Czech Championship and one in the Czech Historic Championship) withdrew on Stage 16 Radostin I. Follows Stage 8 Střevelná I., where five crews resigned (three in the Czech Championship and two in the Czech Historic Championship). At Stage 19 Radostin 2, four crews resigned (two crews from both the Czech Championship and the Czech Historic Championship). Stage 11 Milíře 2 scored three retirement (all from Czech Championship).
- While there was a close fight for victory until the end of the contest in the Czech Championship of contemporary cars, Vlastimil Neumann / Martin Hlavatý with Ford Escort RS Cosworth, who won by more than nine minutes, clearly dominated the Czech Historic Championship from start to finish.
- Rally Bohemia measured a total of 552.14 km, of which 160.58 km were special stages. Despite the larger number of accidents, no Stage had to be canceled or shortened and all crews completed the full number of “sharp” kilometers.
- ECO Energy Rally Bohemia had almost three times more crews in its second year than last year.
- The ECO energy Rally Bohemia was the fifth event of the FIA Electric and New Energy Championship world cup this year and started with the world top of the discipline – both the last world champions of this discipline and all the leading crews of this year’s championship.
- FIA Electric and New Energy Championship World Cup classification was won by Italian Walter Kofler / Franco Gaioni ahead of French crew Arthur Prusak / Thierry Benchetrit and other Italians, Guido Guerrini / Emanuel Calchetti. All three crews on podium were racing with the Audi e-tron.
- A total of 146 media workers (journalists, photographers, cameramen – including television crews) were accredited at this year’s Rally Bohemia.
- According to police estimates, Rally Bohemia 2019 was visited by 60 to 80 thousand spectators.
All information from all parts of this year’s Rally Bohemia can be found at www.rallybohemia.cz. You can also watch the race events on social networks. The organizer of Rally Bohemia would like to thank the traditional general partner of the rally, car company ŠKODA AUTO and other partners, without whose support such an extensive and demanding competition could not take place. Thanks also to all organizers at the track for their help and residents of municipalities for tolerance to restrictions in connection with this significant and traditional race.
Rally Bohemia can be found on these accounts on social networks:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rallybohemia
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/RallyBohemia
Instagram: www.instagram.com/rallybohemia
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2019-08-27 [274]
